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Originally posted by Rthuth434

UO is not even earning enough to be named on EA reports. if you count that then there's tons of ancient games that have paid for themselves by now yet are not making any important gain for the company.

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Originally posted by Irondust

But we are not talking about "potentially profitable", we are talking about really profitable. If we watch it from your position, than plenty of games could be considered "potentially profitable", because they have live servers and not shut down yet. The question is, is these games are making profit to actually release updates and grow in development, or they just half-dead?

Lineage still making millions of dollars, is UO and everquest making it too? I'm doubt in it

If you are talking about "really profitable" that's even worse - because as I've mentioned repeatedly Lineage is unlikely to ever beat WoW, even if you give Lineage 5 extra years and Wow dies now (of course UO is not in the equation in this instance).

You are still not comprehending the mathematical part of this dilemma.

I'm curious how you came to that conclusion? No offense intended, but it doesn't seem like EQ at all to me.

The main feature they seem to share is totally open world (all zones and dungeons are public). Overland is all one zone. Dungeons are their own open zone each with some of them having several openings around the world.

It's a 2.5d isometric game with world design more reminiscent of UO and many sprite based games of that era, but it's artwork and music were beautiful.

It wasn't a themepark nor a sandbox. It was just open, but you couldn't build much. Guilds could war for castles during designated siege times and control area taxes and access to the castle dungeon. Even non guild and alliance members would come out to help one side or the other in sieges to ensure a good guild managed the tax rate and dungeon.

The game was gear based, but most gear power was based on enchanting the item rather than it inherently beating lower tier gear. A +10 common sword was more powerful than some rarer drops of lower enchantment. Enchanting failure could result in item destruction so there was always a flow of items.

It was pvp-centric, but it wasn't random ganking. The community policed that. However, there were always guild (they were called pledges) wars and feuds.

There was an entire class solely devoted to being the guild leader. Only royals cold make guilds (called pledges).

One North American server, called the Lands of Aden, had a special ruleset.

Anyway, I think Lineage is probably the oldest most successful mmo for sure. I hope ArcheAge lives up to that legacy.

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Originally posted by aRtFuLThinG

If you are talking about "really profitable" that's even worse - because as I've mentioned repeatedly Lineage is unlikely to ever beat WoW, even if you give Lineage 5 extra years and Wow dies now (of course UO is not in the equation in this instance).

You are still not comprehending the mathematical part of this dilemma.

We have different meanings of "really profitable". I mean "really profitable" in a way that game earns more money, than needed to keep servers up, make updates, new content and tech support. You are said than "really profitable" is "most prifitable in world", which is not true.

And I'm not talking about mathematics, I'm talking about which game can be considered "profitable" or "not-profitable". Lineage can be considered profitable, UO and EQ can't, basing of publishers financial reports.

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Originally posted by Irondust

Originally posted by aRtFuLThinG

If you are talking about "really profitable" that's even worse - because as I've mentioned repeatedly Lineage is unlikely to ever beat WoW, even if you give Lineage 5 extra years and Wow dies now (of course UO is not in the equation in this instance).

You are still not comprehending the mathematical part of this dilemma.

We have different meanings of "really profitable". I mean "really profitable" in a way that game earns more money, than needed to keep servers up, make updates, new content and tech support. You are sad than "really profitable" is "most prifitable in world", which is not true.

And I'm not talking about mathematics, I'm talking about which game can be considered "profitable" or "not-profitable". Lineage can be considered profitable, UO and EQ can't, basing of publishers financial reports.

If you are not talking about mathematics, than everything about this discussion goes out the window - because BOTH profit and time are very clearly defined and quantifiable numbers, and I have no idea what are you looking for? (maybe an opinion piece?)

Also, profitibility only has one meaning, because it is a numerical meaning. Profitability is a quantifier, NOT an opinion. You minus your earnings with costs, and you come out ahead, there you go, it is a profit. A very simple business concept.

If a game has enough earnings to keep servers up, updates, contents and tech, it is already "profitable". If it can't do any or even miss one of that and have to cut cost, in accounting it is called a "loss". Thus you definition of "really profitable" is entirely skewed because that NOT how accounting works.

If by that definition, I can't see UO and Everquest can be considered a "loss" (or in YOUR definition, not "really profitable" lol) since I'm sure the parent company will not hesitate to chop them off if they are not profitable (especially the fact that you are talking about EA and SOE here, the most corporate of game makers).

So in terms of longest running still profitable (or by your definition, "longest running really profitable" lol) UO is top because it is longest running AND being maintain because it is still making the company money.

I really fail to see how, in any either definition aforementioned, Lineage with come out ahead. Don't get me wrong I think was a good game, but it is just mathematically wrong in so many ways to call it so.

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Originally posted by aRtFuLThinG

If a game has enough earnings to keep servers up, updates, contents and tech, it is already "profitable". If it can't do any or even miss one of that and have to cut cost, in accounting it is called a "loss". Thus you definition of "really profitable" is entirely skewed because that NOT how accounting works.

If by that definition, I can't see UO and Everquest can be considered a "loss" (or in YOUR definition, not "really profitable" lol) since I'm sure the parent company will not hesitate to chop them off if they are not profitable (especially the fact that you are talking about EA and SOE here, the most corporate of game makers).

So in terms of longest running still profitable (or by your definition, "longest running really profitable" lol) UO is top because it is longest running AND being maintain because it is still making the company money.

I already said, that we have different opinions of what could be considered profitable. For me it is live servers + updates + additional money for publisher. For you it is just live servers + updates. Further discussion is pointless

I don't count the NA release date, because as someone who plays rather on EU servers it's seems dumb to fixate on NA release especially when i measure the MMOs in a global scale. If i would go there, i'd only count games which have specific EU releases with EU hostet servers and then it's neither UO or L1.

But the difference between UO and L1 is, the later still makes money AND still gets real updates.

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Originally posted by Irondust

Originally posted by aRtFuLThinG

If you are talking about "really profitable" that's even worse - because as I've mentioned repeatedly Lineage is unlikely to ever beat WoW, even if you give Lineage 5 extra years and Wow dies now (of course UO is not in the equation in this instance).

You are still not comprehending the mathematical part of this dilemma.

We have different meanings of "really profitable". I mean "really profitable" in a way that game earns more money, than needed to keep servers up, make updates, new content and tech support. You are said than "really profitable" is "most prifitable in world", which is not true.

And I'm not talking about mathematics, I'm talking about which game can be considered "profitable" or "not-profitable". Lineage can be considered profitable, UO and EQ can't, basing of publishers financial reports.

"really profitable" is your own criteria. The OP's assignment of "15% of the books" is equally ridiculous when comparing companies with 8 titles and other companies with 20-50 new titles every year for over 15 years.

"What's the longest running profitable MMO?" The answer, by any measure, is Ultima Online. Had the question been "What's the most profitable MMO of the MMOs that have been around for over a decade?" the answer most likely would have been Lineage.

"And wikipedia is as accurate as Britannica. Wikipedia is very reliable. You would be hard pressed to find a more reliable source for these kinds of things." -fivoroth

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Originally posted by strykr619

Originally posted by L0C0Man

Yet they shut down their NA servers? Sorry but Lineage can't be counted if they had to cut it back due to lack of players. If you want to see a game with little overhead still turning over a good profit look at Everquest. 100k players still 14 years later.

Does Everquest have servers in Korea? If not, I don't think it counts either. /sarcasm

Ofcourse its Lineage.

I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been-Wayne Gretzky

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Originally posted by Loktofeit

"What's the longest running profitable MMO?" The answer, by any measure, is Ultima Online. Had the question been "What's the most profitable MMO of the MMOs that have been around for over a decade?" the answer most likely would have been Lineage 2.